The Green Party of Canada has filed a complaint about a strategic voting website, which omits information about its party in ways it says are favourable to the NDP.
Strategic voting is when people within a riding aim to vote in a way that prevents a certain candidate from winning the seat. In the 2025 election, many voters are using strategic voting tools in an attempt to prevent Conservative candidates from winning.
Now, a tool called ProgressiveVote.ca has drawn the attention of the Green Party, resulting in filing a complaint with the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
“We had a lot of people forwarding screenshots from it and asking us if this was legal, so we looked into it, and we decided to it really was a significant violation of the rules around fair, honest communication during an election,” Green Party co-leader and Saanich Gulf-Islands candidate Elizabeth May said in an interview with CHEK News.
“So we filed an official complaint.”
The Green Party alleges the NDP is using ProgessiveVote.ca for the “spreading of misinformation.” The NDP denied involvement of the party in the website.
Green results omitted from ProgressiveVote.ca
ProgressiveVote.ca uses the results of the 2021 federal election and suggests that the results of the election should sway voters in the current one.
However, every riding only uses the results from the NDP, Conservative and Liberal Party and omits all others.
The Green Party points to the Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding, which omits the Greens’ Paul Manly’s results. Manly received 25.7 per cent of the vote in the 2021 election, which was higher than the Liberal candidates’ 13.5 per cent.
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Additionally, the website often omits results from ridings where an MP from a party outside of those three was elected.
Using the site to search for Saanich-Gulf Islands or Kitchener Centre, both ridings with Green MPs, the website returns a message “We don’t have enough data for this riding yet. Check back closer to election day!”
This same message is received in many ridings with Bloc Québécois MPs, while others have a message that shares the percentage of the vote the Conservative Party received in 2021, followed by “You can vote your values without worry. An NDP vote supports progressive policy.”
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Michael Prince, a political science professor at the University of Victoria, says the election commissioner will have to investigate whether or not the NDP was involved in this website, and also whether it contravenes election laws.
“That the information that’s being presented leaving out Paul Manley’s vote results from the 2021 election, strikes me as a clear case of manipulation and deliberate misrepresentation of the results of that election. So I can see why the Greens were quite upset by it,” Prince said in a Zoom interview with CHEK News.
Prince also notes that omitting results from ridings like Saanich-Gulf Islands and seats with Bloc Québécois MPs “seems to be very conscious partial reporting of information.”
“It’s a misrepresentation to say this information is not available. Anyone who wanted to go to Wikipedia or just Google and type in 2021 federal election results, Saanich or a Quebec riding, you’d get a whole history of a riding,” Prince said.
Prince notes the Canada Elections Act prohibits “by any pretence or contrivance” influencing a person to vote or not vote for a certain candidate, and he believes that omitting election data in the way that ProgressiveVote.ca has done would fall under that definition.
“I would hope that there could be a quick ruling on this, but I don’t know how many other complaints are before the commissioner at this point during this campaign,” Prince said.
CHEK News asked the commissioner if it has received this complaint from the Greens, and a spokesperson responded “Due to the confidentiality provisions in the Canada Elections Act, I’m not able to confirm whether the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections has received a complaint or initiated an investigation.”
“I can tell you though, that our office reviews every complaint we receive to determine whether or not the issues described fall within the scope of our mandate.”
NDP denies involvement or use of ProgressiveVote.ca
Glen Sanford, the B.C. director for the NDP, says the complaint from the Greens is “frivolous.”
“There’s no way Elections Canada will do anything with this, and I’m pretty sure the Greens know that,” Sanford said.
“I think that they’re sort of making a fairly absurd and frivolous complaint to try to counter the reality that people in Nanaimo are experiencing.”
Sanford reiterated that the party is uninvolved with the creation of this website. He also said this isn’t a tool the NDP is using for their campaigns.
Despite this, CHEK News was able to find instances of NDP candidates, and staff sharing ProgressiveVote.ca and directing voters to check it out.
Peter Julian is the NDP candidate for New Westminster-Burnaby-Maillardville.
— Peter Julian 🇨🇦 (@MPJulian) April 22, 2025It’s clear: the strategic vote in New Westminster–Burnaby–Maillardville is NDP — to stop Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives and defend what matters most to us. 🧡🗳️
Visit: https://t.co/MGUIdePIM2, for more information. #NDP #Elxn45 #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/wqcI81s01H
Jonathan Gauvin is the NDP’s chief of staff.
So useful!!https://t.co/s0Bc5LAAVR
— Jonathan Gauvin (@jo_gauvin) April 18, 2025
Jennifer Howard is Jagmeet Singh’s chief of staff.
Voting this weekend? Here’s a data-driven guide to how you can vote NDP, stop Conservatives and have a strong progressive voice stand up for you in Ottawa. https://t.co/n2TkOTGq7c
— Jennifer Howard (@howard_jennifer) April 18, 2025
Sanford shared an example of ads the NDP is using in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding, which he says the argument for voting NDP “is stronger if you include the Greens.”
Founder of similar website weighs in
JB Burrows is the managing director and founder of another strategic voting website, called SmartVoting, had posted a TikTok talking about his concerns with the ProgressiveVote website, which the Greens link to in their news release, but he says they did not work with the party on the complaint.
He says the rules around using data during elections are clear.
“It is against the rules to misrepresent existing election data. If you are going to present data to somebody on a website and a mailer in any sort of communications, you do need to include other candidates. You can’t just say we’re number one,” Burrows said.
“We have to ensure that our data that we are showing is correct, or at least has the presumption of correctness. Like we may be wrong, we may get a polling number wrong, but we are basing this off of very trusted public opinion polling.”
After he launched SmartVoting, Burrows says the site was subject to an investigation by Elections Canada, so he is familiar with the process.
“I’ve been ran through a fine tooth comb by Elections Canada, because when I created my website, inevitably somebody complained, and then they followed the complaint. Which is fine, I have nothing to hide,” he said.
“I have no doubt that this individual and these groups will be contacted. It’s just a matter of what Elections Canada finds.”
Data Shows, a website run by Tom Parkin, says it launched ProgressiveVote. CHEK News reached out to Parkin by email for an interview but did not receive a response.
Looking for information on candidates running for election on Vancouver Island? Go to CHEK News’ election hub to read candidate bios and interviews from all seven ridings.
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